Incline Village Real Estate Culture:

Dec. 8 2011     

The dry pattern that has left Tahoe without snow for too long will continue through the early part of the weekend before it begins to show some signs of change.

The big picture is that we are stuck behind a ridge of high pressure over the Pacific that is sending all the storms north into Alaska and British Columbia before they crash back down into the US interior, mostly over the Rocky Mountains. The northwest and the Rockies are doing fine, snow-wise, but we've been left high and dry. Things were not helped when several early-season storms that could have built our base slid down the California coast without turning inland over the Sierra as they normally would.

This weekend should be more of the same through Sunday. A low pressure system that is headed for Nevada on a mostly north-south trajectory could deliver some light snow to Tahoe as it passes by. The Eastern Sierra is likely to get more than the western slope as the moisture is coming at us from the backdoor. We will also see some more of those cold north winds, though likely not as fierce as the windstorms of a week ago.

While this storm won't bring much moisture, it does signal the beginning of a pattern change. Over the next 10 days or so we are looking for that ridge over the Pacific to shift, opening the door to more storms to come out way. There is nothing big in the forecast yet, but this is the first glimmer of hope in some time. Once we see that ridge move out of the way, we can expect the jet stream to sag south again, providing a more west to east track for those low pressure systems to sweep across the Pacific and into the Sierra.